J \ ! i \J ^ ii>i ARITU THE LIBRARY BRIGHAM YOUN'^ UNIVERSITY PROVO, UTAH It ^v/ PIRANESI PORTRAIT OF GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI. PIRANESI 3^ ARTHUR SAMUEL LONDON B.TBATSFORa94.HIGH HOLBORN NEW YORK •> CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS'^ MCMX THE LIBRARY BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PROVO, UTAH i TO THE READER For some years past I have admired and collected the etchings of Piranesi, and feeling a desire to know more about this wonderful man and his son Francesco, I have gathered together such facts as are available. The result is this monograph which deals not only with the etchings which are, for the most part, of views of Rome and its ancient remains, but also with the influence the etchings have had upon the architecture and decorative schemes associated with the names of the brothers Adam, and upon the furniture designs of Chippendale, Sheraton and their successors. The monograph must, however, be read VI only on the distinct understanding that the composition of its pages contains nothing original so far as I am concerned. If the result of the perusal be satisfactory to the reader the credit will not be mine ; if, on the other hand, it be unsatisfactory I shall be ready to accept responsibility. I have levied toll upon every available work of authority, standard or otherwise, in English, French and Italian, and whatever I have found I have taken, lock, stock and barrel, and with such catholicity that, for fear of placing too exhausting a strain upon my printer's supply of subsidiary types, I have not given references, and I have not used as many inverted commas as I ought other- wise to have done. A few reproductions are given in this volume for the purpose of conveying an idea of the general character of Piranesi's etchings. It should be borne in mind, Vll however, that the original etchings suffer in being reduced from their very large size to the small proportions of the present reproductions. In most cases the original etchings measure not less than 25 inches by 15 inches, many indeed are much larger. My publisher, Mr. Herbert Batsford, has taken considerable trouble to collate the etchings, the list of which I give, and I hope the student will find it of service. Every effort has been made to render it as perfect as possible. I have to thank him for many valuable suggestions and for the great pains he has taken in the pro- duction of the book. ARTHUR SAMUEL. 48 Montagu Square, Marble Arch, W. October 1910. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Reproductions in this volume are given for the purpose of conveying a rough idea of the character of Piranesi's Etchings. The originals from which they have been taken are very large, in many cases they measure 25 x 15 inches. The reduction in size, resulting from the process of reproduction, has decreased the particular effects which distinguish the originals. PLATE 1. PORTRAIT OF GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, AGED 58 YEARS, BY GUISSEPPE CADES ; ENGRAVED BY FRANCESCO PIRANESI . Frontispiece II. STATUE OF PIRANESI BY ANGELINI, IN THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA AVENTINA . facing p. I III. ENGRAVED CATALOGUE ISSUED BY PIRANESI IN MAY 1764, WHEN ONLY 64 PLATES OF THE VEDUTE HAD APPEARED ... ,j 4 IV. ARCH OF CONSTANTINE AT ROME . . foUozuing p. II V. TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE AT P^STUM . . „ 1 4 VI. THE COLOSSEUM AT ROME ... ,,27 VII. TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL AT TIVOLI, SOMETIMES CALLED THE TEMPLE OF VESTA OR OF HERCULES ...... ,,40 X PLATE VIII. IX. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. Jacing p. 40 »> 57 » 58 follonving p. 65 facing p. 73 folloiving p. 83 facing p. 102 following p. 1 04 COMPOSITION FROM " OPERE VARIE " CANDELABRUM FROM " VASl CANDELABRI, ETC* ••.••* TRIPOD AND VASE FROM " VASI CANDE- LABRI, ETC." .... DETAILS FROM " VASI CANDELABRI, ETC." VASES AND TRIPOD FROM " VASI CANDE- LABRI, ETC." .... PONTE MOLLE, OVER THE TIBER TRIPOD FROM "VASI CANDELABRI, ETC.' INTERIOR OF A PRISON, FROM " CARCERI d'iNVENZIONE," first STATE, I75O FROM " CARCERI d'iNVENZIONE," SECOND STATE OF THE PREVIOUS PLATE FROM "CARCERI d'iNVENZIONE " ST. PETEr's at ROME from an original drawing in the british museum temple of neptune at p^stum fontana di trevi villa albani, near rome . Trajan's column IMAGINARY SCENE IN THE APPIAN WAY following p, DOGANA DI TERRA, AT ROME . . „ » facing p. 109 IIO 118 125 131 141 144 164 174 180 PLATE II. ILim ,„,Jr/nli,„. ,/, nnifrff,- ,// ,,r,m ,am/f/.i/'iv ,l>, m Hi> i.iNi.Ani« - Ai.nr.CAKi.A.MXi PL.UTAK SIttll.l.AllI ' ARCIIITKCTI itvr.M Cl.KMKNS Xin PONT MAX UH INtSKNl I.AVIII'..\1 KT Otr.RVM KXCELLKM TI AM KUVKITKI IIIOKITArt.EXOHMAVlT I'lVH VIXIT' AHNOIl l.VIII m»:r,«»iT TiosovmiB- Axya-si irirt- rrxviii- ICT- »»-.KIVri»KT' l«VKJITI»«TAV»l» CIAHVH- APVD- Ar.QVAI.I!» VriLIH* POCTKKITATI I.OCO IIATU AB'IOA.N DAIT HESKOXIrO CAKII MAC FKIUH VRIIII ORI> IIIKROtOI. PA'I'BONO LVIIVLUKNTIX' STATUE OF PIRANESI IN THE CHURCH OF SANTA \fARIA IN AVENTINO. lootft;^ PIRANESl " My two friends came as expected, also Missie, and staid till half-past two. Promised Sharpe the set of Piranesi's views in the dining parlour. They belonged to my Uncle, so I do not like to sell them." — Sir Walter Scott's Diary, Feb. 14, 1826 (Lockhart's Life). Giovanni Battista Piranesi, the etcher of the views which hung in Sir Walter Scott's dining parlour, was born at Venice on October 4, 1720, not 1707 as stated by Michaud, and he died at Rome on November 9, 1778, of a trifling illness rendered fatal by neglect. His father was a man in humble circumstances, a mason, perhaps a foreman mason, and familiarly known by the nickname " Torbo celega " — " the foolish blind man," for he was blind of one eye. Temanza, a fellow-pupil with Giovanni under their master. Scalfarotto, describes the father as a shoemaker, but that description is unconfirmed and should be disregarded. Giovanni's mother was Laura, sister of the engineer and architect Lucchesi, who had constructed waterworks and had built the Church of San Giovanni Novo at Venice, and it was from his uncle Lucchesi that Piranesi received his first lessons in Art, but, says Temanza, as both were of a " stravagante " nature, they soon quarrelled and parted. Towards the end of 1737 Piranesi, who had been taking instruction from Onofrio Mascati, began to dream of Rome. Francesca Corraghi, the young girl to whom he was attached, had on the death of her parents come from Rome to live with friends at Venice. She fired his ambition, she spoke to him of Rome, of Rome with its infinite Art treasures, and persuaded him to go thither and try his fortune. Notwith- standing his parents' opposition, he persisted in his determination to obtain their consent 3 to follow the career marked out for him by Francesca and to leave Venice. From earliest childhood he had been famed for uncommon beauty of countenance and for extraordinarily precocious powers. At the age of eight he was able to portray the architectural beauties of Venice. At ten he could construct from his own imagina- tion designs for buildings, and it is said that Venetian masons even then took ideas from his drawings. At fifteen his name was known on the Rialto, and his father was confident he would make his way success- fully in the trade which he himself followed. By the time, however, that he had reached his seventeenth year Giovanni had given such ample proof of ability and aptitude that his father was finally induced to send the boy to Rome to study architecture and engraving, and although it was Francesca Corraghi who had inspired him to go for- ward and strike out for himself, while he was at Rome at work on the Campo Vaccino she threw him over to marry the Conte d'Amalfi. Furnished with an allowance from his father of six Spanish piastres a month — about five shillings in English money — Giovanni reached Rome in 1738, and began his studies under Valeriani, Vasi, Scalfarotto, and other masters. Through Ricci of Belluno (born 1680) and Pannini (born 1691) was transmitted to Piranesi that taste for imaginative land- scape painting cultivated by Gellee (born 1600, and better known as Claude de Lorrain). Gellde had stimulated Ricci and Pannini to devote their talents to imagina- tive compositions, using as materials the moss-clad ruins with which Rome was covered, and which served, in Rome as well as in the Campagna, as habitations for a picturesque population of ragged beggars, robbers, and outlaws. The stairs of the Colosseum itself had long been hidden under a thick growth of clematis, and the forest of ilex and myrtle in the Baths of Caracalla PLATE III. rridlf ".3 . ENGRAVED CATALOGUE ISSUED BY PIRANESI IN I764, was still existing in 1818, some years after Piranesi's death, when Shelley, then on his way to the villa at Este lent him by Byron, composed his Prometheus Unbound beneath its shadow. Ricci had been Valeriani's master, and from Valeriani Piranesi absorbed the style of Ricci, and, no doubt, some of his taste for romantic subjects, witness such of Piranesi's plates as are creations of fancy. But the work he turned out with the assistance of his own force of imagination and his mastery of the etching tools was superior to that of Ricci or of Pannini. Valeriani was a great master of perspective, and Piranesi owes much to him, as does he also to Vasi, the Sicilian, who gave him a thorough knowledge of the art of etching ; but Vasi's engravings, although full of careful execution and quality, look insipid when compared with the bold work in Piranesi's plates. It was Vasi who first filled the young Goethe with a desire to visit Italy, and 6 the very engravings of Vasi which thus inspired Goethe now hang in the Goethe- Haus at Frankfort. When little more than twenty years of age, Piranesi, fancying that his instructor Vasi was hiding from him the true secret of the uses of aqua fortis, actually at- tempted to murder him. According to Biagi, Piranesi's suspicions were not entirely baseless, as Vasi had become jealous of his pupil. Vasi appears to have treated the matter lightly, for it ended in his simply turning Piranesi out of his studio. Tall in person, of dark complexion, with restless bright eyes, despondent and exult- ant by rapid changes, imaginative, jealous, perhaps vain to a high degree, always eager to annoy his neighbour, the young Piranesi vividly recalls Benvenuto Cellini in temperament and character. It is not indeed to be wondered at that a man so generously endowed by nature with an intensely vivid imagination, should have been highly sensitive and irritable. Nor must it be forgotten that men possessed of real force of character are never altogether pleasant in disposition. Strongly conscious of his own power, he thought himself capable of great things, valuing himself highly, and brooking neither opposition nor contradiction, nor indeed anything that he suspected to contain the slightest tinge of disparagement of his work or of his opinion, let alone of himself personally. Throughout the whole of his life Piranesi never lost an opportunity of eagerly advancing more than half-way to meet any person who had the slightest inclination for a quarrel, and he was per- petually involved in some sort of dispute. Even the Delia Magnificenza ed Architettura de Romania with 44 plates and 200 pages of letterpress in Latin and Italian (a work which added considerably to his fame and which gained for him the " croce equestre "), was merely Piranesi's rejoinder 8 in a controversy with Marietta, the author of Delle Gemme incise degli Antichi, An argument had been started in the London Investigator in 1755, and to the discussion Piranesi contributed this work in defence of his assertion that Rome owed her monuments to Etruscan and not to Greek models, and that the Romans were not, as stated by the Investigator^ a barbarous people before the conquest of Greece, or, in the words of the Investigator^ " a gang of mere plunderers sprung from those who had been but a little while before their conquest of Greece naked thieves and runaway slaves." As was his habit with every- thing in which he took an interest, Piranesi threw himself into an exhaustive study of the question. The result of his researches was that he became convinced that the Romans had taken their architectural models from the Etruscans rather than from the Greeks, and that long before the Romans had invaded Greece the principal 9 Roman temples, aqueducts, and roads had been magnificently built and with a correct knowledge of architecture and engineering, but that after the conquest greater splendour had been introduced into architectural work in Italy. This view he henceforward upheld under all circumstances against every one and on every occasion, never losing an opportunity of proclaiming his opinion on the subject aggressively and of championing it, when proclaimed, even to the limit of his powers of acrimonious expression. He was quite wrong in his views about Paestum (page 14) in this connection, though pro- bably right in what he said about Rome. So important was the influence of these particular opinions on his work that it may perhaps be permitted to digress for a moment in order to consider how far modern research in Rome itself will be able to sup- port Piranesi's views, seeing that during the 130 years that have elapsed since the etcher's death extensive explorations have lO been pushed forward in the Basilica iEmilia. These excavations are likely to have con- siderable bearing on Piranesi's theories, because near the Basilica is the Curia Julia, and not far from the Curia Julia is the spot upon which was built, about the year 640 B.C., the Curia Hostilia. When the time comes for laying bare the site of the Curia Julia modern archaeologists anticipate that slabs will be found bearing records of the decrees of the Senate in the days of Tar- quinius Prisons. These same slabs will be those known to have been removed from the Curia Hostilia and placed in the Curia Julia, and if they do actually bear Etruscan as well as Roman inscriptions they will afford strong evidence in support of Piranesi's opinions ; for, according to some authorities, Tarquinius Prisons, who greatly increased the number and dignity of the Senate, was not only of Etruscan birth, but it was he who conquered the twelve nations of Etruria. There is every reason, ii therefore, to assume that he was familiar with Etruscan characteristics and with the beauties of the national architecture, and that they appealed to one, himself of Etruscan birth, with the consequence that he drew freely upon Etruscan models for ideas. Piranesi contended that, with such assistance, Tarquinius was enabled to lay the foundations of the Capitol, and to adorn Rome with the buildings of restrained magnificence which, at the end of several centuries, were regarded by Romans of Nero's day with admiration greater than that inspired by the buildings erected by that stupendous artist himself The Cloaca of Rome has always been said to have been built by the Etruscans in the time of the Roman kings, for the Etruscans were among the first in the use of the Arch,^ and if ^ Professor Flinders Petrie discovered at Dendera in Egypt a passage 6 feet wide covered w^ith barrel vaults dating from 3500 B.C. This is perhaps the earliest known example of the Arch. (See Architecture of Greece and Rome^ by Anderson h Phene Spiers, p. 147.) 12 Other work dating from the days of Tar- quinius Priscus can be brought to light bearing bilingual inscriptions and treated with Etruscan feeling, at any rate the hypothesis of the Etruscan origin of the architecture of Rome urged by Piranesi will be placed almost beyond the region of doubt. After the rupture with Vasi, Piranesi made his way back to Venice and en- deavoured to earn a living there as an architect, studying at the same time under Tiepolo, who gave him instruction in historical painting. With Polanzani he studied figure design. Attaining, however, little financial success at Venice, he returned to Rome, and thence went to Naples to paint. But it soon became clear to him that his powers did not lie in that branch of art. Interest in archaeological matters was the chief reason for his journey to Naples. He visited Paestum and Pompeii, and also Herculaneum, which had been discovered 13 in 171 1 by Charles in. of the Two Sicilies. Although the Theatre at Herculaneum was below the level of the ground and in almost total darkness, his imagination and instinctive knowledge realised what the whole had originally been like. Using such information as the discoverers had by that time acquired, he made a plan of the Theatre, supplying details of which there was no record, according to his own ideas of what the structure had been. In after years it was his intention to publish etchings of these researches, and he had planned to proceed with them as soon as he had finished the etchings of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. In this he was forestalled by death. He died while he was at work upon the plates of Hadrian's Villa. The etchings of Herculaneum were eventually finished and published, in 1783, after his death, by his son Francesco, and dedicated to Gustavus III. of Sweden. There are evidences, however, that Francesco in this 14 connection made use of Palladio's Le Terme del Romani. Perhaps Hadrian's Villa was the subject to which he devoted more time than to any other subject he took in hand. It covered an exceedingly large area, but he succeeded in arriving at a general plan of the entire Villa and in reconstituting it on paper, using for a basis such remains as existed. As time went on further dis- coveries were made, and Piranesi's plans, confirmed by fresh and elaborate measure- ments carried out by others, were regarded as masterpieces of inspiration. From Naples he went to Passtum ; he there surveyed the Temple of Neptune, and adduced what he called the unmis- takable signs of Etruscan work present in that building to support his argument and opinion that the Etruscans had produced fine buildings long before the settlement of the Greeks in that part of Italy. Besides the Temple of Neptune there are two other 15 temples, and they are referred to in detail farther on in these pages (see page 128). They are all certainly of Doric origin. Ap- parently no ancient writer mentions them, and they were unknown to archaeologists until they were referred to and described in 1745 by Antonini. Piranesi either did not know of or ignored the fact that, from a period dating, roughly, as far back as 750 years before the Augustan age, all Southern Italy was sown with important Dorian Greek cities. There were Crotona and Sybaris on the Bay of Tarentum, Paestum itself being a colony of Sybaris. Locri on the Adriatic was another great Dorian Greek city, and all of them were adorned with large temples similar to those at Passtum. These temples differed materially from the Etruscan temples in the north of Italy ; not only were they much larger than the Etruscan temples, but they had at least one other very distinct difference, for while the columns in Doric temples had no bases i6 Vitruvius states that there were bases to the columns in Etruscan temples. Leaving Naples, Piranesi came north again to Rome, determined to settle in that city and to devote himself to engraving and etching. At Rome he lived in great straits, which were intensified by his refusal to obey his father's wish that he should return to Venice and start afresh in his native city, the result of this refusal being the thrifty reprisal often associated with parental displeasure, the stop- page of the son's allowance. Months passed in desultory but useful study of etching and painting, and although Piranesi evidently desired to be able to paint, he finally realised that he did not possess the necessary ability, and gave up the attempt for good. No examples of painting by Piranesi are recorded. Thrown on his own resources, he directed all his powers to etching, and in about 1 74 1, when he was twenty-one years old, published four romantic compositions of 17 ruins framed in a decoration of scrolls and volutes of the type peculiar to the period. They are not dated, but they indicate where Piranesi was living ; on them is his address — near the French Academy, in the Corso, opposite the Palazzo Doria Pamphili. These four compositions are often found in the volume entitled Opere Varie published by Bouchard in 1750. In 1748 were published the first of his etchings which are dated ; he called them Anttchith Romane de Tempi delta Repubblica e de' primi Imperatori^ etc. {Arc hi Trionfali Antic hi Tempi^ etc.). Roma 1748. They include 30 plates of views of several Roman buildings in the provinces, such as the Amphitheatre of Verona, and the Triumphal Arches of Pola in Istria, of Ancona, and of Rimini. He dedicated them to the literary antiquary Bottari, private chaplain to the etcher's patron, Pope Benedict xiv. Monsignore Bottari was the discoverer of the twelfth- i8 century manuscript of The Vision of Alberico^ from which, says Isaac D' Israeli, Dante had borrowed or stolen the Inferno. These Antichita plates were reissued, under the same date, with the title altered to Alcune vedute di Archi Trionfali^ etc., and two fresh plates by Francesco were added. Fascinated even from the first moment of his arrival by the silent stones and shattered monuments of Rome, Piranesi worked with the utmost diligence. Intensely interested by what he saw, his heart and soul were set aglow with a feeling partly of pride and partly of awe at the splendour he saw or imagined around him ; and it is indelibly stamped upon his earliest as on his latest work that his aim was not so much to imitate as to describe, to explain, to compel others to become conscious of, and to value, the noble beauty which was visible to himself. He claimed that his etchings would bring him undying fame. " I do dare to believe,'* he wrote, " that, like Horace, 19 I have executed a work which will go down to posterity, and which will endure for as long as there are men desirous of knowing all that has survived until our day, of the ruins of the most famous city of the universe." This is pompous. But at least the example of Milton may be quoted in Piranesi's defence. In his Reasons of Church Government Milton in 1641-42 declares his resolution to take full time for meditation on a fit subject, and he informs the world that it may expect the production of a great poem from his pen "... a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapour of wine, . . . nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her seven daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance, ... to this must be added industrious and select reading, study, observation and insight into all seemly opinions, arts and affairs.'' Piranesi was self-conscious in good company. In the 20 Preface of the Antichith Ro?7tane he says : " When I first saw the remains of the ancient buildings of Rome lying as they do in cultivated fields or in gardens and wasting away under the ravages of time, or being destroyed by greedy owners who sell them as materials for modern buildings, I determined to preserve them for ever by means of my engravings, and the reigning Pope Benedict xiv. assisted me with his generosity and encouraged me in my labours." Quite without means, he set poverty at defiance. He worked day and night, denying himself the proper sleep which a straw mattress — his sole worldly possession — might have afforded him. Juvenal's description of Codrus with his one bed and his statue of a Centaur, in a garret among the pigeons' nests, aptly fits the conditions under which Piranesi lived — " . . . quern tegula sola tuetur a pluvia, molles ubi reddunt ova columbae." But, toiling with enthusiasm and with un- 21 conquerable perseverance, he burst through all difficulties. Models and instructors being beyond his means, he worked from grotesque figures and sights at hand in the streets, using cripples, and even the meat hanging in the butchers' shops, as studies. Some of these drawings were known to exist in the collection of Prince Rezzonico. Ragged beggars were special favourites with him for a similar purpose, and of their picturesqueness, reminiscent of Callot, he afterwards made effective use in many of his plates ; in some of the plates the costumes of the period add interest. A manuscript Life of Piranesi is said to have been in the possession of Priestley & Weale, publishers, of London, in 1830, but no trace can now be found of it. The details of his life, however, are written in his etchings ; without their aid there is little enough to be told about him person- ally. In his plates alone stand the records of each day's acts and thoughts, but the 22 very copiousness of his output shows at once how little time was available wherein anything could happen to Piranesi in matters outside his workroom. Such incidents indeed as did occur were closely concerned with his etching needle. They consisted mostly of quarrels and arguments ; as a rule they were about petty matters, and, unfortunately, with almost any person with whom Piranesi came in contact. The physical effort of producing by his own hand a work of great magnitude, and at the same time indulging in a personal disagreement or dispute about artistic technicalities, with this or that friend or foe, amply filled up Piranesi's days. When he was not working and disputing simultaneously he was disputing only, and when not disputing he was at work, etching with a savage fierceness in defence of his latest contention. His mark was made immediately the impressions from his first plates ap- 23 peared. Assisted by a brilliant needle and a delicate touch, he conveyed his own enthusiasm to all who examined his work. At Rome it was soon perceived that he possessed the skill to deal with architectural subjects in a manner incomparably superior to that in which such subjects had hitherto been treated. His fiery, contemptuous, quarrelsome disposition had made him con- spicuous ; a singularly facile and vigorous pencil now gained him distinction, and the growing fashion for archaeological research was confirmed, if not set, by Piranesi. His plates appeared with inscriptions disclosing a wealth of arch^ological in- formation, and these inscriptions Bianconi, who wrote Piranesi's obituary notice in the Antologia Romana^ states were the outcome of assistance from Bottari and the learned Jesuit Father Contucci. But various authorities, among others Tipaldo, contradict this allegation, and Piranesi's son, in after years, put forward docu- 24 mentary evidence to prove that not only was Piranesi quite capable of composing the inscriptions, but that he was well versed in a knowledge of both Latin and Greek. A quarrel with Volpi, respecting some temples, also proved his antiquarian know- ledge, and, on the whole, the evidence goes to show that the inscriptions may be attributed to the etcher himself. His excitable nature, stimulated by an ardent admiration for the remains of Rome, urged Piranesi to work with such impetu- osity that, frequently, he had not the patience to devote any time to making studies or sketches. In many cases he simply drew his subject on the plate and completed it al- most entirely by etching in aqua fortis, and with little assistance from the graver. This method accounts for the rapidity with which he threw off great numbers of etchings, most of them very large in size and crowded with architectural detail expressed in a manner calculated to arrest and retain the 25 attention of the average man. He took great care to discover the point of view from w^hich his subject would be regarded by the ordinary spectator. A master of perspective, he was able to carry con- viction to the least technical eye. In the estimation of his fellow-craftsmen he was distinguished by the peculiar skill which enabled him to convey the effect of dis- tance by gradation of tone. With him the swelling line was employed continually for the purpose of obtaining bold contrasts, and this is the reason why his etchings gain so greatly in effect if hung on a wall as pictures, and at a distance, as compared with the effect produced on the eye when they are examined in a folio. Like Pannini, the chief point in his plates is usually the foreground ; Piranesi throws great masses of buildings straight into the eye of the spectator. Boldness of imagination and force of execution enabled him even to increase the majesty of a subject under treatment. He 26 drew the side of a building or a row of columns in such a way that an effect of in- terminable distance was obtained; and to add solemnity to ruins he cast over them festoons of weird foliage, now like ivy and now like seaweed. Dense foliage actually existed among the ruins ; the monuments, aqueducts, tombs, and palaces of Rome were indeed covered with a jungle-like growth of trees, and Piranesi made full use of the romantic effect lent by the vegetation. The Rome of classical days still presented in the eighteenth century a mournful scene not alone of ruined but also of neglected mag- nificence. The noble splendour of her architecture was almost obliterated, and little was left of stately streets, once the pride of Augustus himself, to bear silent witness to having endured the blows of every indignity. That which had been the palace of the Caesars Totila had reduced to a mound of rubbish, and the wind had sown it with a forest of tangled shrubs. The Forum, to 27 whose decrees the whole world had bowed, was Cows' Field, and men spoke of the Capitol as Goats' Hill. Aqueducts, marvels of construction, bridged a desolated Com- pagna with such spans as had survived mutilation by Vitiges. No more than a third of the Colosseum remained ; it had been in turn a fortress, a stone quarry, a woollen mill, and a saltpetre factory. Smothered in weeds it had at length, with 420 different kinds of plants, trees, and shrubs, provided material for a botanical treatise entitled "The Flora of the Colos- seum." A plantation of wild fig trees covered the Arch of Titus. The Tiber had from time to time flooded Rome and earthquakes had shaken her to the foundations. But it was the hand of man that had done the worst. Norman Guiscard had burnt the city from end to end and from side to side, the Constable of Bourbon had sacked it ; Lombards, Goths, Vandals, and Saracens had laid it waste. The builders of 28 St. Peter's had pulled down the Septizonium of Severus and had used its stones for their own purposes, and the very tomb of the Saint was indebted for a portion of its embellishment to columns cast from bronze knaved from the roof of the Pantheon. The Popes and their kinsfolk had desecrated and devastated the buildings of classical Rome with ruthless hands, and that which they had left undone had been accomplished by hordes of those barbarians whose invasions were, according to Machiavelli, often the outcome of Papal invitation or connivance. Most people are incapable of transferring to paper the representation of a scene or object before them, many cannot even draw a double cube in perspective. To such persons the facility with which Piranesi has drawn com- positions and subjects, architectural and natural, involving intricate treatment of per- spective will appear to be what Mr. Glad- stone would have described as " devilish.'' To some the fascinating effects of Piranesi's 29 skilful perspective are wont to give rise to an uneasy suspicion that it is the result of a trick, or sleight of hand, and these will regard his work as a sceptical public usually regards the minutely carved boxwood nuts and rosary beads to be seen in the British Museum, with admiration based upon wonder, and will not receive from it an aesthetic sensation pro- duced by appreciation of the Beautiful. There is a picturesque if unconfirmed legend that in order the better to obtain the light and shade effects, some of the principal characteristics of his etchings, Piranesi studied by daylight the scene he proposed to etch, half completed the plate, and then, having saturated his memory with the details necessary for the picture, finished the plate at night, on the spot, by the light of a full moon. In many cases he imparted a studied disorder into the treatment of the details of the subject for the purpose of making the plate more interesting. He dealt indiscriminately with subjects of 30 all kinds, reproducing ancient ruins as well as standing buildings of more recent date. He took minute and accurate measurements, and many of the etchings contain a multitude of measured details of ancient and mediaeval architecture, of which, up to his day, there had existed absolutely no record. In respect of these details alone Piranesi is of the utmost value to the architect of to-day, and parti- cularly to the student of the early Renaissance. It is difficult to estimate the whole extent to which Piranesi depended on others for artistic assistance. Not all the plates were entirely his own unassisted work. The figures in some of Piranesi's plates were etched by Jean Barbault, more particularly in those plates dealing with sepulchral monuments, and as Barbault's name appears on such plates in addition to that of Piranesi, the amount of his assistance can be readily ascertained. There are three plates in the Antichita Romane engraved by Girolamo Rossi — one of the three was drawn by 31 Antonio Buonamini. Piranesi took pupils, employing them to help him, and among those whom he taught was Piroli, a man of considerable parts. Beyond Barbault's work the assistance from pupils and others could not have amounted to much. Piranesi's style was of so individual a character that were there any important work by another hand it could be easily detected in the etch- ings. Little or no such traces are to be found in the etchings, and, as none of Piranesi's pupils have produced work which had caught Piranesi's style, it may be assumed that if work other than Piranesi's were present in the vital portions of a plate it would be noticed without difficulty. His pupil Piroli is well known as a friend of the gentle-spirited John Flaxman, R. A. He did part of the work for Flaxman's illustra- tions of Homer, Dante, iEschylus, and Hesiod, under Flaxman's personal supervision. Towards the end of Piranesi's life his children were of assistance ; but of his five 32 children only two were old enough, before their father's death, to be of real help, namely, Francesco, born in 1748, and Laura, born in 1750. They both etched somewhat in their father's style, and Francesco did fair work, as may be best seen in the Paestum etchings ; a diligent worker, he possessed to some extent the power by which his father's work is marked, but in imagination and taste he was entirely lacking. After their father's death they turned to print-selling more than to producing, and Francesco and Laura, joined by their brother Pietro, published at Rome a quantity of engravings, and among them several sets of Piroli's engravings. The frontispiece of this volume is repro- duced from a portrait of Piranesi which his son Francesco engraved after the painting of Guisseppe Cades. Francesco etched the // Teatro d'Ercolano plates which were pre- sumably made up from his father's drawings, with the assistance of Palladio's Le Terme del Romani, These etchings show the rela- 33 tive difference in the quality of the father's ability as compared with that of the son. But in any case, however good Francesco may be considered, he suffers by comparison, as is usually the case where a son has to compete with his father's reputation. Piroli the pupil drew the statue executed by Angelini which sometimes appears bound up with the works of Piranesi; the plate was engraved by Francesco.^ The statue itself was erected in the Priorato di Malta which was at one time connected with the Church of Santa Maria Aventina. It is mentioned by Baron Stolberg in his Travels, This church Piranesi restored about the year 1765, and there he lies buried, although immediately after death his body was taken to S. Andrea della Fratte, where it remained till it was decided that Santa Maria Aventina should be its final resting- place. There existed in Rome, and there is no reason to suppose that it has been destroyed, ^ A reproduction of this plate is given in this volume. 3 34 but it cannot be traced, a bust of Piranesi by Alessandro D'Este, the cost of which Canova defrayed. It used to stand in the Palace of the Conservatori. His contem- porary Bianconi declares the bust to be a bad likeness. Santa Maria del Popolo also is one of Piranesi's restorations. Restorers, justly or unjustly, do not as a rule seem to be favourites with mankind ; but in the case of Santa Maria del Popolo the restorer has left little or no opening for fault-finding. How reverently and well he did his work is proved by the fact that Santa Maria del Popolo, notwithstanding the restorations, is still considered by students to contain original specimens of the most splendid types of Renaissance Art. But Lanciani condemns Piranesi's restoration of II Priorato, calling it a mass of monstrosities, inside and out. On the whole, however, he did very little work as a practical archi- tect. He accepted the patronage of the 35 Rezzonico Pope Clement xiii., also a Vene- tian, who made him Cavaliere, and for whom he carried out a few restorations, and whose portrait he executed. Piranesi's etchings found ready buyers, but the largeness of the output rendered the pecuniary return to the artist extremely small. The supply being copious, it was necessary to stimulate demand by charging usually only the modest price of 2| paoli (about 2s.) for each etching, however large. Thus his very industry was a disadvantage to him, for the important reason that he had to earn a living. In the case of some artists it would seem that idleness possesses a certain pecuniary advantage. His first dated publication, dedicated to Bottari, dated 1748, and referred to on p. 17 as bearing his address, contained 30 plates. The complete set was priced at the miser- able pittance of 16 paoli, or about 13s. ^d. It was with the utmost difficulty during the early part of his life that he was able 36 to pay his way. A wife, curiously enough, proved almost his salvation, bringing as she did a small dowry. Piranesi's courtship is in consonance with his well-known character, and is all of a piece with everything else he did. The story is told that he was sitting in the Forum at work drawing : his eye fell by chance on a girl who happened to be passing ; she was with her brother. Pira- nesi, without leaving his seat, asked them who they were. The boy replied that they were the children of Prince Corsini's gardener. To Piranesi the girl's black eyes and her features were an instant proof that she was descended from the ancient Romans, and that she therefore fulfilled the ideal he had fixed in his mind of what his wife should be. Later the knowledge that she possessed a dowry of 1 50 piastres (about ;^i2, 5s. od.) seems to have convinced him that his first impressions were correct. After hearing from the brother who they 2>7 were, he rose to his feet and asked the girl if che were free to marry. She said she was, and the matter was at once settled so far as Piranesi's own intentions were concerned. After this one interview with the person whom he had thus hastily decided to make his wife, he bluntly asked her to marry him. Such impetuosity, while it scared both the girl and her parents, effectively prevented them from raising objections or creating obstacles. Piranesi was able to gain his point at once, and, as usual, devoid of patience, he wasted no further time, and the couple were married five days later. The courtship had been one of under a week. One is reminded of Cellini. Nor was it apparently at all unusual in Italy during the eighteenth century to arrange matrimonial and other matters in this impetuous fashion. It is narrated by M. Monnier of Carlo Goldoni, the Moliere of Italy, who was born a dozen 38 years before Piranesi's birth, that he had decided to marry, but on recalling an old saying, came to the conclusion that the delightful woman whom he loved might possibly develop the ugliness of her elder sister, and imagining his own disgust in such an eventuality, gave her up. The story goes that a few days later seeing by chance a pretty young woman on a balcony, Goldoni bowed to her with great tender- ness, to which she made response with the utmost fervour and equal modesty. Not a moment was lost, a conversation ensued, the girl told Goldoni that she had no mother alive, but that her father might possibly be found at a cafe hard by. Off went Goldoni to the cafe, found the father, offered a theatre ticket or two and himself as a son-in-law, and settled matters without further ado. His wife's dowry enabled Piranesi to procure materials and to follow out his intention of illustrating the Antiquities of Rome, and notwithstanding the husband's 39 irritable disposition and jealous tempera- ment the happiness of the union was such as to show that possibly the matter of the 150 piastres might not have been an incentive to the courtship and marriage. In the early days of their married life they occupied, in the Palazzo Tomati, near the Trinita de' Monti, the rooms which, in after years, were inhabited by Thorwaldsen, whence all his succeeding plates were issued ; the first dated plate from that address is of the year 1750. The Opere Varie^ published by Bouchard and dated from the Palazzo Tomati, near the Trinita de' Monti, 1750, bear Piranesi's adopted Arcadian title " Salcindio Tiseio," as well as his name and the words " Archi- tetto Veneziano," for he never permitted it to be forgotten that Venice was his native city. This volume shows the influence of Pannini's style : there are the broken altars, fractured columns, shattered pediments, and the slab bearing the incised name of the 40 etcher, the whole composition thrown together just as Pannini would have painted the picture. Sometimes bound up in this volume is a series of imaginative designs for palaces, temples, and national buildings, perhaps intended as examples to be shown to possible clients, private or public. This volume also contains the Carceri^ to which reference is made later on. The Raccolta di Varie Vedute was published in the next year, 1751, by Bouchard, and comprised 93 plates. Of the 93 plates 47 are the work of Piranesi, and they do not appear to have been included in any other volume of Piranesi's etchings ; a few of them, however, are to be found, reduced to quarto size, in a volume by Venuti, issued in 1766. The Raccolta di Varie Vedute is a somewhat scarce volume, and the British Museum copy, though otherwise perfect, does not possess a title-page. It was Piranesi's custom to shut himself up in his own room and to work straight PLATE Vin Ilpmrw dt que^to Tempwenobzidnt^rU^ e/en^aJv dalsuob : veiiesiir,. nve^zo la.Ce/U rot»,nda, amie, b I purt, tuta> tljr-(Ut Vcuro